Video: What if you turned your kitchen appliances into one big music synthesizer

Geeks are hot.

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More on the NYT and whether reporters should fact-check their sources

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

The Times itself has amplified the assertion — made by Romney and Rick Perry — that Obama has apologized for America, without any rebuttal, at least three times: Here, here, and here. I urge Brisbane to check them out. If he does, he’ll see that any Times customer reading them comes away misled. He or she is left with the mistaken impression that Obama may have, in fact, apologized for America, when he never did any such thing.

In other words, in all those three cases, the Times helped the GOP candidate mislead its own readers — with an assertion that has become absolutely central to the Republican case against Obama. Whatever the practical difficulties of changing this, surely we can all agree that this is not a role newspapers should be playing, particularly at a time when voters are choosing their next president.

My earlier post on this is here. Read the rest of this post...

Magazine finds models weigh 23% less than normal women

Via ABC:

Most runway models meet the body mass index criteria for anorexia, according to an editorial pictorial in the January issue of PLUS Model magazine.

Twenty years ago, the average fashion model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23 percent less, it said. When asked for its source, the magazine cited the website of Rader Programs, which treats those with eating disorders.

I am not sure that super-models are meant to represent real-life women, to the extent they represent anything it would be the sort of body that makes expensive designer clothes look good in photographs. Real women don't walk around with three point lighting rigs either. Read the rest of this post...

The major offensive on Romney and Bain Capital

Over at AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field I have a post looking at the major offensive launched by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and a pro-Gingrich Super PAC on Mitt Romney's tenure as a job-destroyer while in charge of Bain Capital.

A half-hour documentary, When Mitt Romney Came To Town, is a huge story this week. Watch it - it's devastating and the interviews of workers who lost their jobs after Romney's Bain came in and broke their companies are heart-breaking.

Of course, there is a real credibility question when it comes to how believable Gingrich and Perry are as messengers in this attack. Neither have proposed anything which would prohibit Bain Capital from behaving today the way they did when Romney was in charge. That is unlikely to change, but the political attacks on Romney and his record at Bain Capital won't stop either. Read the rest of this post...

Federal judge confirms Obama admin approval of Monsanto GM alfalfa

Huge props to Jennifer Grayson, of Huffington Post and her own site, for following stories like these so assiduously.

First the news (my emphasis):

A federal judge has upheld the government’s decision to let the nation’s alfalfa growers plant the genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant strain manufactured by Monsanto Co., saying the alleged risk of contaminating other crops does not require regulators to impose buffer zones. ...

The action was challenged by a group of alfalfa farmers who said they feared that the Monsanto product, spread by winds and bees, would pollinate their crops and take over their fields. Thursday, however, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti of San Francisco said the USDA had acted within its authority.

Federal law does not require the department to “account for the effects of cross-pollination on other commercial crops” in assessing the risks posed by a new crop, Conti said.

I can't speak about the law, but I know that one of two things (at least) is true. Either the judge is narrowly right, in which case Monsanto purchased that law (sorry, lobbied with many million units of their "free speech" for it) — a bought law, in other words.

Or, the judge found a way. (I'll forgo characterization; he could be a sincere revolutionary and not just a guy giving a hat-tip to Thank You Street.)

As I say, one of those two things is likely true.

About this decision, Grayson adds:

Translation? GM alfalfa is free to blow around and contaminate (“cross-pollinate”) the fields of organic alfalfa (“other commercial crops”) that feed our nation’s organic dairy cows. USDA doesn’t have to worry about it. But you do[.]

Not to mention that Monsanto will then attempt to sue the non-Monsanto farmers for "using" Monsanto seed.

And not to mention that these GM crops are losing their pest resistance.

Which makes you wonder what these farmers are paying Monsanto to do. Sorry, I forget myself — The farmers are paying Monsanto for the right to make Monsanto rich. Monsanto loots the farmers; Monsanto CEOs loot Monsanto. Can't be Top 0.1% without the money.

It is indeed the old old story. Thanks to Ms. Grayson for bringing it to our attention.

[Update: Fixed error in title.]

GP Read the rest of this post...

Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists causing delays with Dodd-Frank

Why do Republican presidential candidates hate America? (It's not even necessary to ask the question about Wall Street because it's so obvious.) What other industry could get away with ignoring the law and failing to comply other than Wall Street? Imagine if you tried ignoring the law yourself and see how long you get away with it. CNBC:

A recent report from the Davis-Polk law firm showed regulators have missed the deadline on 78 percent of the 400 rules and regulations required under Dodd-Frank, including 12 percent, or 25 rules, where the deadline has been missed but the rules have not even been proposed. In response to a CNBC request for comment, a Treasury spokesman said the real uncertainty comes from those seeking to repeal the sweeping financial regulatory reform law. “Current calls to repeal Wall Street reform are a significant cause of the uncertainty that responsible business leaders are seeking to avoid,” the spokesman said. “Once it is fully implemented, Wall Street reform will improve market certainty, strengthen the financial system, help boost the economy, and provide better protections for taxpayers.”

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Controversy over video showing Marines urinating on Taliban bodies in Afghanistan

Hamilton Nolan at Gawker has a fascinating take on this:

A video emerges showing US Marines pissing on three Taliban corpses in Afghanistan. The outrage machine grinds into motion. The media bestirs itself from its slumber. Americans momentarily pay attention to the war in Afghanistan again. Politicians rush to add their names to the chorus of identical statements. All inflamed over the least bad thing that soldiers do in war.

Do you know what is worse than having your dead body urinated upon? Being killed. Being shot. Being bombed. Having your limbs blown off. Having your house incinerated by a drone-fired missile that you don't see until it explodes. Having your children blown up in their beds. Having your spouse killed. Having your hometown destroyed. Being displaced. Becoming a refugee. Having your entire life destroyed as a consequence of political forces far, far beyond your control.

And we as a nation could not be more bored by the unceasing industrial strength violence being carried out in our names in nations where none of us will travel, or vacation, or think about much at all as long as sports and American Idol and Downton Abbey are on TV. We skim past those stories of the latest bombing or drone strike or gunfight or civilian massacre. We joke about the personal foibles or funny accents or minor gaffes of the politicians who hold it in their power to stop war, but won't. We're bored and petulant and self-absorbed until that video of some soldier pissing on dead bodies comes along, at which point we can have an outrage contest and feel good about ourselves for being more outraged than the next completely uninvolved person, for a day or two, until the big game comes on.

I'm not sure. My reaction isn't disinterest to the actual death of the Taliban fighters, it's approval.  I still, however, am not sure I like videos like this.  Which is interesting, since killing them is fine but urinating on them is not.

And regardless, you'd think soldiers would have learned by now about taking videos of themselves doing bad things to dead Muslims. Read the rest of this post...

In ginocchio da te

I love this.  The title means "On my knees for you."  (The song is in Italian, I think the subtitles are Romanian.)  The singer, Gianni Morandi, was born in 1944.  That would make him 68 years old.  It's always odd to me to find guys hot in really old photos, knowing they're either quite old at this point, or no longer with us.  Not sure why I find it odd, but I do.  Oh, and here's the translation of the song - it's not exactly Shakespeare, I just like the sound of it, and the video.

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NYT public editor unsure if paper should publish lies unquestioned

Sigh.

In an article titled "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?", the NYT's public editor asks whether reporters have any responsibility when publishing things they know to be lies. He then gives a few stra wmen to make it seem awfully complicated. Here's on example:

Another example: on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:

“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”

First off, the first sentence is valid, the second is questionable. The first is not the reporter's opinion, the second is. The reporter could simply write the first sentence, and in place of the second quote a respected fact check site's analysis of whether the President did in fact "apologize."

You can't just repeat the lies and be done with it. At the very least you quote someone countering the lie, but even then the damage is done (I say you're a pedophile, you say "no I'm not" - the paper prints both and now people wonder). Often what reporters do is, rather than quote an authority pointing out the lie, they quote a partisan - which makes it look more like a he-said-she-said than an irrefutable rebuttal. What reporters should do depends upon the nature of the allegation (if it's a known lie then get an expert to refute it, if it truly is an opinion, then get an opinion from the other side). Same thing goes for known truths, don't just quote a Republican questioning them without citing irrefutable proof of the truth.

And finally, underlying this entire story is the notion of whether journalists should inject themselves in their stories and decide for themselves what the "truth" is. The thing is, journalists already do that all the time. They daily make judgment calls as to what is and isn't credible.

I guess what bothers me about this story is the notion that somehow it's "bad" for a journalist to use their own internal filter for deciding whether or not a story is credible. And at some point, you have to, otherwise the only stories out there will be the un-credible ones. Read the rest of this post...

Santorum's family in Italy were commies

(Somewhere's there's a blog post in Italy reading: "Santorum's family in America are fascists.")

Like many of the most hard core anti-fascists, Santorum's family in Italy were communists. It was a similar story elsewhere in Europe where many of the resistance fighters were either communists or far left. What's amusing in this instance though is that the Euro-leftist family is embarrassed over Santorum's extreme right (dare I say "fascist") policies.

But the elder Santorum matriarch doesn’t understand why he has diverged so far from the family’s longtime political stance. “In Riva del Garda his grandfather Pietro and uncles were ‘red communists’ to the core,” writes Oggi journalist Giuseppe Fumagalli, likening the family to “Peppone” after a famous fictional Italian communist mayor who fought against an ultraconservative priest known as Don Cammillo and about which a popular television series is based. “But on the other side of the ocean, it’s like his family here doesn’t exist. Instead he draws crowds as the head of the ultraconservative faction of the Republican party, against divorce, gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.” Those politics don’t play well in Riva del Garda, a community of ultraliberals. On the campaign trail, Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy “to escape fascism,” but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party. “Rick’s grandfather Pietro was a liberal man and he understood right away what was happening in Italy,” Mrs. Santorum told Oggi. “He was anti-fascist to the extreme, and the political climate in 1925 was stifling so he left for America. After a few years he returned to Italy with his wife and children, including Aldo, Rick’s father, who passed away late last year. It’s a shame he won’t have the joy to see his son’s success in his bid for the White House.” She goes on to explain how the family then became pillars of the Communist Party in Italy. The matriarch lauds her distant relative as a “masterpiece” of the family, whom she calls a man of high intelligence and integrity. “He would be a great president,” she told Oggi. “But if he wants to make it, he will have to soften some of his positions. To take a stand against homosexuality or to oppose divorce is harmful. Principles count, but in politics one must have the capacity to be open-minded.”

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What’s wrong with the courts is that progressives don’t care about them

What's wrong with the courts is that progressives don't care about them.

This is a strikingly clear, informed, passionate statement of the current situation in the U.S. judicial system, and the inexplicable refusal of the left to play in the same league as the Republicans, much less the same game.

A must-listen in my opinion. And both hosts, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Culture of Truth (author of the Bobblespeak Translations), make excellent points.

The whole show is an hour, but a good place to start is 40:40, just after the break. Ms. Lithwick and CoT had been talking about Obama's health-care law (ACA) and the potential for a favorable SC ruling. They then moved to the calls for Kagan (from the right) and for Thomas and Scalia (from the left) to recuse themselves.

After the break, they picked up there, with the calls for ACA recusals. This launched a terrific discussion.

Click play and then pause to let the full piece load (it should take only a few seconds). Then click in the progress bar to move to the middle. Start listening at the 40:40 mark.

(Hint: Holding down the right and left arrow keys performs an excellent fast-forward and fast-rewind. Use them for navigation.)

Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

A brief run-down:

■ At 40:40 — Will Kagan recuse? Will Thomas? This leads to a great discussion of "Is the court necessarily political?" (Don't miss Lithwick's nice writerly phrase "blinking like bunnies in the sun.")

■ At 44:30 — Even though the court has only to appear apolitical, those appearances are critical to the court's success.

■ At 45:30 — CoT: Here's why — loss of legitimacy; the court has no army and no purse (brilliant point, well made).

■ At 54:20 — The left has completely ignored the long 30-year project to take over the court system.

■ At 60:05 — The problem isn't just Citizens United; it's 30 years of right-wing decisions.

■ At 61:05 — Great summation by Lithwick. A taste:

Citizens United is just the icing on the cake. The cake itself is a serious of cases that have gone on for years, undetected, about limiting the ability of litigants to get a fair shake in the court ... using incredibly technical rules.

The whole of this rant is not to miss.

■ At 65:10 — Lithwick on the right's "long war," not just on health care, but on reproductive rights, environmental protection, redistricting (see here), Arizona immigration, and so on.

■ At 67:20 — Lithwick: If you care at all about the courts and the 30-year right-wing takeover (my phrase), you have to care about who the next president is. (She said it; I'm just calling balls and strikes. And like it or not, this really is one of the args a thinking person must consider.)

Bottom line, same as the first sentence. While the Federalist Society Right, with its corp-first ideology, has been fighting a 30-year battle to pack the U.S. court system with cronies and fellow radicals (my phrase again), the left has been going on long champagne lunches, enjoying the fruits of our national postwar wealth, and assuming this will always be their daddy's USA. It won't.

Lithwick's point (and mine): Time for the left to step up. The game isn't over yet, but the day will come when it will be, and most of us have kids.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Homeland Security monitoring HuffPost, Drudge, blogs

Weird report. Sounds innocuous and creepy all at the same time. From Reuters:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.

A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."

The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."

Yeah, that's clears things up.  Again, this could be innocuous.  But it does sound odd. Read the rest of this post...

Myanmar signs peace treaty

If it holds, this is a very big deal as the internal fighting has gone on for decades. Parts of Myanmar were off-limits due to the ethnic fighting. We've seen visits from the UK and US recently which have indicated a new Myanmar, plus the call for more open elections so perhaps there is going to be actual change there. Perhaps. Al Jazeera:

Myanmar's government and one of the country's most prominent ethnic rebel groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), have signed a ceasefire after decades of civil conflict. A delegation of ministers from the capital Naypyidaw and senior members of the KNU signed the pact in Hpa-an, the capital of eastern Karen state, an AFP news agency reporter witnessed on Thursday. The military-dominated government, which came to power in March last year after decades of outright army rule, has been trying to reach out to ethnic groups as part of reforms seemingly aimed at ending its isolated status. Civil war has gripped parts of the country since its independence in 1948, and an end to the conflicts, as well as alleged human rights abuses involving government troops, is a key demand of the international community.

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Bailed out UK bank to chop 3500 more

Without the bottomless pit of free handouts from taxpayers, expect to see a lot more of this happening. The banking industry has enjoyed a free ride for long enough so if they can't figure out how to make money on their own, it's their problem. Really though, it's not a matter of them not making money, but them not making obscene amounts of money. They distorted reality with the bubble years and still think that's normal. It's not. Until they figure that out, governments need to pass on some tough love for the bankers and let them come back to planet earth. BBC News:

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has said it is planning to cut 3,500 jobs, with most of them to happen this year. The cuts are part of a reorganisation and shrinkage of its investment bank. The losses, which will be split between its UK and international offices, come on top of 2,000 cuts announced earlier.

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A new Swine Flu is back, again

Seems to be a new variant that the old shot doesn't cover. It's not spreading yet, but it's been found in 12 people in 5 states. Ugh. Read the rest of this post...